


Mother Knows Best

by Asynca



Series: Ready, Set, Go! - Speed Prompts [16]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-24 01:51:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7488675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asynca/pseuds/Asynca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exploring Pharah's complex relationship with Ana, and the (innocent!) origins of Pharah/Mercy. Speed prompt, written in 60 minutes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother Knows Best

 

“I like that Angela girl,” Ana told her twelve-year-old daughter, who was busy drawing some nonsense. “She’s a genius, you know.” 

Fareeha kept scribbling furiously away at her tablet. “I know.” 

“Wouldn’t you like to be friends with a genius?” Ana pressed. 

Fareeha looked up at her mother. “Yes,” she said, because she knew that was what her mother wanted to hear.  

“Then what are you doing in here?” Ana asked her. “You can doodle that rubbish any time. Angela is only in the labs on Tuesdays.” 

Fareeha made a face. “Okay,” she said, standing. She spent a moment tilting her head at her tablet and considering it before she took a deep breath and showed it to her mother. She was smiling. “I designed a fully-functional aerial mech suit,” she said, pride audible in her voice as she pointed out parts of it. “It has reverse-throttle thrusters here, because you need to have control in the air when you—” 

“Angela will be gone soon. Don’t you want to see how her advanced healing research is going? You should ask her that. She’d probably like to talk about it.”  

Fareeha's smile fell. She let the tablet drop to her side. “Okay, mother,” she said, slumping.  

She was halfway out the door when her mother spoke again. "Fareeha," she said, voice neutral. "Do you know what I would do if I saw someone wearing that suit on the battlefield?" 

Fareeha wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer to that, but she knew she should listen anyway. "What would you do, mother?" 

Her mother's expression was hard. "I would shoot them out of the sky. One bullet. They'd be nothing but a sitting duck for a good sniper." She turned her attention back to her news program, saying dismissively, "You should really go and see what Angela is up to." 

It felt like a slap in the face; Fareeha hadn't even considered the suit's utility. She just loved the idea of flying, of soaring through the air... Perhaps it was an impossible dream, after all. She swallowed, locking the screen. "Okay, mother," she repeated, and then obediently went to go see what Angela was up to.  

- 

Angela was in the labs right where Fareeha had expected her to be. She wasn’t wearing a white lab coat and stirring furiously at concoctions in test tubes, though (that’s what Fareeha imagined her research to look like), she was wearing jeans and a jumper, lying on an examination table with a drip going into her arm. She was also reading a comic.  

Fareeha hung on the doorway. “What are you reading?” 

Angela turned her head and sighed. “Whatever it is, it’s terrible,” she admitted, and then put it down on the table beside her. “It’s just there’s nothing else to do in here while I wait for this infusion to finish. My phone is completely flat.” 

“Oh…” Fareeha looked down at her tablet. She had a brief thought that maybe Angela would be interested in her design, but now that she thought about it, if her own mother wasn’t, Angela probably wouldn’t be either.  

Angela saw where she was looking. “What’s that?” 

Fareeha flushed red, hiding her tablet in the folds of her dress. “It’s nothing.” 

That only made Angela more interested in it, though. “Really? Because it looked like something to me.” She held her hand out towards Fareeha. “Show me?” 

A little breath caught in Fareeha’s throat. It seemed too good to be true, so she peeked up at Angela to see if she was just pretending, or worse: if she was humouring Fareeha like some sort of child. Angela looked genuinely interested, though, and seeing that expression on her face made Fareeha’s lungs fill with air.  

“Okay!” she told her, unable to stifle a big smile as she went over to the examination table. “I’m working on a flying mech suit design!” She hopped up on the table beside Angela, and they sat together while Fareeha explained all cybernetics and weaponry.  

At the end of the presentation, Angela looked genuinely impressed. “You know, I don’t know much about weapons, but you should really show this to Torbjorn,” she told her. “He _loves_ robotic weaponry, I’m sure he’d be able to give you some pointers on the design.” 

Fareeha’s smile threatened to crack her face. “Really?” Maybe she  _would_ fly one day, after all!

Angela returned that smile, and Fareeha had never seen anything so beautiful. “Let’s go together when my infusion is finished.” 

 


End file.
